01/12/18 – Board of Control Expands State Archery Format, Reviews Initial Football Realignment Parameters

January 12, 2018

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 12, 2018

During the course of its regularly scheduled meeting at the KHSAA offices on Thursday, the Board of Control approved a proposal from staff to create a new championship opportunity for girls in the sport-activity of Archery. Where previously Archery was conducted as a coed sport, awarding one overall team championship, the regional and state competitions will now award separate team championships for coed and all-girls divisions.

“With the continued growth of Archery since becoming a sanctioned sport-activity six years ago, staff was asked to look into the feasibility of creating a separate all-girls division,” said KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett. “The number of female competitors in our member schools and the overwhelming support of this proposal by the advisory committee made for an easy decision to recommend.”

Staff will return to the board in February with a final outline of the timeline and structure for the State Archery Championship, which will be held April 26 at the Kentucky Basketball Academy in Lexington.

In November, the Board held initial discussions concerning the future alignment of Region 11 with the opening of Great Crossing High School in 2019-20. Following feedback from the membership and confirmation from Frankfort Christian Academy that it will compete in basketball, the Board approved Option 2, which adds Great Crossing and Frankfort Christian Academy to District 41, and moves Woodford County to District 30 in 2019-20. The moves will be in effect for baseball, basketball, soccer, softball and volleyball beginning that year. The alignment will remain unchanged for 2018-19.

Football was discussed at length during the meeting, with the Board reviewing enrollment numbers and preliminary realignment projections for 2019-22. The Board also approved a recommendation from the Football Advisory Committee to rebracket the football playoffs in the 4th Round starting in 2018. The proposal, with details and metrics to be established at a later date, would see the Association re-seed the bracket in the semifinals.

The preliminary football classification breakdown is based on four-year boys’ enrollment averages and can be found online at https://goo.gl/DLaQwY. The Board determined that the parameters for staff to place teams in classes will be to assign the top-32 ranked enrollments in 6A, the next 39 in 5A, the next 39 in 4A, the next 40 in 3A, the next 40 in 2A and the final 32 in 1A. The process of specific district alignment will begin after member schools are given a timeframe to declare their intention to “play up” or to withdraw from postseason competition. If a team does elect to play up, the lowest enrollment average school in the higher class would be given an option to go to the lower class. That procedure would be repeated a maximum of three times. The Board has also directed staff to place more stringent guidelines on withdrawal from the districts mid-alignment in order to address concerns expressed by the membership.

The Board also addressed the 2018 Volleyball season, which previously had the start of its postseason moved one week earlier (District, Region and State) to avoid scheduling issues with Louisville hosting the Breeder’s Cup during the standard state tournament weekend. On Thursday, the Board approved a proposal to also move the start of the regular season one week earlier, so as not to shorten the length of season – as it did when addressing the scheduling conflicts with basketball in 2021. Member volleyball schools will now be able to begin competing during NFHS week 6 (August 5-11) for the 2018 playing season.

The new important dates for volleyball in 2018 are as follows:
First Organized Practice – July 15
First Official Contest – Monday, August 6 (NFHS week #6)
District Tournaments – Oct. 8-13 (NFHS week #15)
Region Tournaments – Oct. 15-20 (NFHS week #16)
State Tournament – Oct. 26-28 (NFHS week #17)
For 2019 and beyond, the start of the season would return to NFHS week 7.

In other action Thursday, the Board:

• Approved a standard fee for volleyball line judges at all postseason levels which would be 50% of the standard officiating game fee. The regular season fee structure would be left to local determination.
• The Board approved the Commissioner’s recommendation to move the four schools in Madison County (Madison Central, Madison Southern, Model and Berea) to Region 9 in swimming to help with deck congestion issues at the regional meet.

-KHSAA-

About the Kentucky High School Athletic Association
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association was organized in 1917 and is the agency designated by the Kentucky Department of Education to manage high school athletics in the Commonwealth. The Association is a voluntary nonprofit 501(c)3 organization made up of 279 member schools both public and private. The KHSAA sanctions 44 state championships in 13 sports and 5 sport-activities, licenses and trains over 4,000 officials, provides catastrophic insurance for its more than 70,000 member school student-athletes, as well as overseeing coaching education and sports safety programs.